Husband.

(loosely inspired by Jason Cowan's "Wife.")
Husband. He’s very weird.
He’s growing a redwood tree from a tiny, pinecone looking seed that he found in the redwood forest and then protected for a WEEK until he could get it home, put it in a red coffee mug, and sit it on the windowsill. This morning, he walked over to the window, pulled up the shade, leaned down, and said, “come on little redwood.”

Sometimes I want to melt with how genuinely childlike he is. My car is consistently an absolute mess. One day he tells me, “Hey I made up a song that I think will really help you.” It went, “Bring in one thing from the car, next time it won’t be so hard.” He sang me the song in complete seriousness.

When he gets up in the morning his hair is completely insane. It is matted down and up in like five directions. If he happens to not take a shower that day, he will actually leave it that way well into the day.

If he gets antsy or feels like he’s been around all women too long, he’ll drop to the floor and start doing push-ups. If someone asks why, he’ll say something like, “The estrogen was just getting to me.”

His mom has told me when he was young, it was like he was the president of his own little country. Once, he got his brother and sisters to “play church” in the living room. He proceeded to deliver a “sermon” (at age 7) and then he asked them to put their heads down and thumbs up if they wanted Jesus to come into their hearts. If they did, they could have communion. If only there were a home video of this.

He’s very gentle.
In the morning he wakes me up because I basically refuse until the last possible second. He’ll pick up my arms one by one and rub them “to slowly get the blood flowing.” Then he’ll leave and if I still don’t get up, he’ll call me from downstairs and tell me it is crunch time.

He always makes the coffee. He always cleans up after dinner. He always says “You’re beautiful” and “I love you.” Whenever we argue or hurt each other’s feelings, he refuses to let it go without talking about it. He forgives easily when I am the one who wronged him, and he apologizes quickly when he is the one who wronged me.

He is very patient.
There are about a million things I do regularly that get on his nerves. These include not washing the spatula that I used to make my eggs with in the morning, overreacting, and repeating a point over and over when he got it the first time. But he doesn’t freak out or remain perpetually angry with me. He just says, one more time, “Oh look, here I am cleaning the spatula again. If only someone had washed it this morning, it would be a lot easier to get this crap off.”